


Too Bright to Succumb

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Northern Lights Farm [3]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: All he did was drain happiness out of a room as soon as he walked in, a black hole advancing slowly but surely on a star.





	Too Bright to Succumb

Squealing from the chicken coop seemed like a bad sign.

A couple of months ago—or a couple of days ago, actually, because he still had bad ones—this thought would have reached Shane through a fog, its message deadened by the chemicals-that-weren’t, by the gray matter that was going grayer. Today, though, his body moved first, and the thought came on the heels that had already run several steps toward the screeching.

This was his due, the comeuppance he’d earned by falling asleep by the pond and letting time pass him by while he was unaware. It was just that he kept falling asleep damn near _everywhere_ , these days. Months ago it had taken beer upon beer upon beer to drift off into restless sleep, and now, at as slight a provocation as a springy and slightly damp bed of grass, he found himself instantly unconscious.

“Your body needs the recovery,” his therapist had said, last session, when he’d voiced his displeasure at this new inconvenience. “So long as you’re not falling asleep upright, this isn’t an issue yet.”

What did she know? There was screaming in the chicken coop.

But at least he knew Lydia’s land well, pretty damn well, by now, even though it looked different by the pale light of spring, no longer muffled beneath heaps of snow. He swung wide around the hopeful tops of cauliflowers and pounded down the hard-packed dirt path to the coop, where, without hesitation, he flung the door open and ducked inside.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then, as the shrieks died away, he beheld the carnage.

Lydia was on the ground, arms and legs outstretched like a figure poised for crucifixion. The chickens—white, brown, blue, and the peculiar black creature with red eyes that she called a chicken but which definitely was not—stepped daintily across her body, her arms, her legs, occasionally fluttering a wing or nuzzling with a beak and prompting a fresh scream of laughter. This, in turn, provoked all the birds into disapproving clucks and wing-flapping, quickly moving away from the heaving stomach and chest beneath them.

Jas, whose laughter was constant rather than intermittent, sounded like she was in danger of suffocation. She gasped little breaths between long, prolonged bouts of _ha-ha-ha_ -ing, occasionally punctuated by hiccups. Tears of mirth streamed down her face. Even as he watched, dumbfounded, she picked up the black feathery not-a-chicken and placed it right on top of Lydia’s armpit. It cooed and fluttered and settled, tucking its head into the crook of Lydia’s neck, for all the world like it _adored_ her. Her eyes, wide open and staring fixedly at the ceiling, reflected some inner torment—perhaps caused by the feathers lightly brushing her skin.

With painfully—almost comically—slow movements, both turned to look at Shane, where he stood just over the threshold, stupefied by the whole scene.

“I thought I heard…” he began, realizing now that the screams of fear he’d heard in his nap-addled brain had really been shrieks of delight.

“Shouts of agony,” Lydia said, perfectly somber again, and lifted the—damn it, it could not be a chicken—into the air above her. It spread its wings and let out a proud series of clucks. “Indeed.”

Jas had buried her face in her hands, but he saw her shoulders shaking with silent laughter. He, on the other hand, felt his mood jolt sideways in the unexpected way it always had.

He should have looked at that, at her mirth, at her _happiness_ , and been grateful. _This is great_ should have been the first thought to spring to mind.

Instead. Instead, he saw her laugh and thought, _What a fuck-up you've been, if all it took to make her this way was stunts with chickens and you couldn’t even manage that—_

And Lydia, who—in much the way her chicken was not a chicken—was not totally human but instead some kind of omniscient pod person, said, “We’ve probably tormented the chickens enough, Jas. Want to let them out for me?”

Jas wiped her face, still grinning as if her cheeks hurt, and got to her feet, brushing dust and hay from her dress. She began to skip past Shane, then stopped, hand pulling on his sleeve.

He wished she'd skip on by. There was something awful in him, and it was closer to the surface now, thrashing and tearing to get out.

But he bent, just slightly, at the tug on his sleeve. His muscles, remembering motions they'd made when she was just a toddler, almost brought him down to his knees. When had she gotten so tall? The top of her head was nearly level with his chest, and she kept sprouting upward, like the cherry trees that were pride of place on Lydia's farm; she even had blossoms in her hair. How had he missed it?

How much had he missed?

Maybe he was better at hiding his moods than he'd once been; she didn't seem to notice any danger, anything amiss. She only said, importantly, "Your flowers are askew," and then reached up to straighten the ring of daisies he hadn't been aware was on his head.

Stifling giggles, she skipped out the door. There was a scraping sound as, outside, she released the latch on the chicken door. “Be free!” she cried, in such an imitation of Lydia that Shane’s heart clenched all the harder and the voice in his head repeated, _What a fuck-up what a fuck-up what a fuck-up—_

The chickens streamed past him, clucking wildly, giving chase; outside, Jas shrieked with laughter and ran from their spread wings; but Lydia stopped before him, the worry wrinkle out in full force between her brows. She'd gotten to her feet, at some point. He'd missed that, too.

What _hadn't_ he missed?

“Hey,” she said, very softly. She didn't look at the chain of daisies on his head and giggle. Her eyes moved and darted, trying to catch hold of his. “Come back.”

He tried. That was a big deal, supposedly. People kept telling him so. That he would try to claw his way out of a spiral instead of letting it swallow him easy was apparently a thing worthy of praise. He tried to stop the voice in his head. The volume of it turned down a little. It sneered at his paltry definition of success, but it faded back, one step. Two.

“Tell me what’s wrong, if you can,” she said, looking up at him, the evidence of great joy still on her face—her mussed hair and her slightly reddened and damp eyes and all he did was drain that kind of thing out of a room as soon as he walked in, a black hole advancing slowly but surely on a star—

“She’s so much happier,” he said, forcing the words out.

She cocked her head a bit to the side, considering, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

“She’s never been that happy when it’s just…” _Us. Me._ “I’m just...bad at this. At being her dad.”

Lydia cast a look at the open chicken door, where sounds of Jas’s renewed laughter drifted through into the coop, along with the delighted lowing of the cows next door. They were probably already hanging their heads over the fence for Jas's attention. She'd always been so good with animals. So kind, so gentle.

“You’ve both struggled,” Lydia said, and he gave a snort of derision. “Hey. Acknowledge the truth. She lost her parents. You lost your friends. Of course it’s been rough with just the two of you.”

“She cheers up for you.”

He didn’t want to sound bitter or ungrateful, but the words were out and there was no taking them back, and they sounded both. Bitter, and ungrateful, and _envious_. His soul shriveled, but Lydia didn’t react. Didn’t flinch.

Pod. Person.

“She cheers up because she can tell that _you_ are better,” she said calmly. “Because she’s not so worried about _you_ anymore. Before I started in on the chicken shenanigans all she could talk about was the carbonara you made last night and the board game you played with her even though she kept forgetting the rules. I did some tricks with chickens. I promise you, it doesn’t compare.”

The voice in his head turned down a little bit further. Enough to let him really feel like an ass. Perfect.  “Lyd, I didn’t mean to—”

She reached out to catch hold of his hand. “I asked. You told me. That’s the only way to set the record straight, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said—reluctantly. “But I’m still sorry.”

“I know you are."

They stood in silence for a moment. She held onto his hand—a little awkwardly, at this angle—and a frisson of anxiety nothing like the other kind ripped through every one of his nerves. She did casual affection like it was easy; he hoped it wasn't obvious that he soaked it up like the dry, porous bit of sponge forgotten on the back of the sink.

And the worry wrinkle was still there; light as her tone was, easy as she spoke, she didn't brush any of this crap of his off. She _worried_. He was still trying to get used to the idea that he deserved it.

"Don’t get me wrong,” she said, and gave him a stern look. “I’m not above doing tricks with chickens to get a laugh out of her. I love her, too.”

There was a moment—a bright, crystallized instant—of clarity. The sun shone through the high windows of the coop, bringing out the warm-tree-bark-brown of her messy hair, which had a white chicken feather in it and a daisy just barely clinging to the elastic band holding her ponytail. Her eyes stated facts, inasmuch as eyes could do such a thing. She squeezed his hand, gave a slight smile, and let him go.

_He_ loved _her_ , too.

Shit.

He needed to say something. Not his little revelation. That needed to wait. No, something about being grateful. Glad that Lydia cared so much about Jas. His tongue felt too thick in his mouth, and his pulse was banging at the back of his throat, blocking the words.

"Thanks," he said. Gruffly. _Great_ , he thought, hopelessly, but it was the best he could manage, which was at least better than nothing.

She raised an eyebrow at him; her lips curled in a smile. She plucked the chicken feather from her hair as if she'd known it was there all along, and he was still reeling a little when she said, "Now, you’ve learned about tricks with chickens, but did you know that there’s also _therapy_ with chickens? They're very affectionate creatures, you know, and the feathers—”

She ran the feather over his ear and down his neck without waiting for a response, which—as she had probably intended—provoked a laugh. He jerked away from the feather. She smiled, smugly. With a devious glint in her eye that too closely matched that awful black feathered _thing_.

"Excellent for laugh inducement," she said briskly. "Unparalleled, really."

“Don’t touch me with that,” he warned, backing toward the door.

She raised the feather. Threateningly.

He ran for it, but really, the damage was already done. His mood jolted sideways again, and though she didn’t quite catch up to him as she chased him around and around the chicken yard, he found himself laughing—breathlessly, helplessly. He heard her cackling behind him, too, gasping for air in between. Jas hoisted herself up on the fence, out of the way, and clapped and cheered at the spectacle. One of Lydia’s chickens attempted to do the work for her by buffeting his ankle with a wing as he passed by.

It was absurd. An outsider looking in would think they had lost their minds—or, at least, that they were profoundly weird. He usually cared about that kind of stuff. Usually worried and worried over the whispers he imagined were being whispered about him.

Today, he didn't care. Not a bit. The mood of the picnic earlier had returned, like a cloud had moved aside, allowing the sun to shine through the cherry tree blossoms again. Placing odd shadows, vaguely colored pink, on the beat-up old blanket spread beside the pond.

That was Lydia. Maybe he was a black hole, but she was just too bright to succumb.


End file.
